Western Standard - Triggered： Municipal climate extremism will bankrupt taxpayers

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 good morning it's june 1st 2022 welcome to triggered this is the live daily show with

00:00:40.620 the western standard we have a number of guests on i get ranting out of my system and uh we have

00:00:45.840 some political discussion being live we have a comment scroll whatever platform you may be

00:00:51.580 watching on comments are welcome throw them at me you know i don't necessarily respond to all of

00:00:56.280 and some people have seen i do often respond to them though and i could even get crabby with you

00:01:00.200 now and then no sense trying to provoke me though i'm usually crabby enough as it is and again have

00:01:06.120 some discussion with each other the advantages of being live is that you can interact with each

00:01:09.720 other with me with guests potentially but we do want to keep it civil to a degree you know we can

00:01:15.240 get worked up that's what i do but we don't have to be uh too impolite we can do this all in a civil

00:01:21.720 manner. Okay, so let's see what the observations are for today. I don't want to mess up after

00:01:27.300 causing all that controversy with the mix-up on the Hug Your Cat Day. Today is National Go Barefoot

00:01:33.880 Day. I guess going into June, for those who like going barefoot, this is the day to start doing it.

00:01:39.800 And it's also National Nail Polish Day, so those kind of come together quite well. 0.98

00:01:44.320 Get your feet fixed up, make them look a little better, and take them out and show them off to 1.00

00:01:48.800 the world. No amount of nail polish is going to fix up the ugly claws I have under my shoes. It's

00:01:53.600 pretty rare where you'll see me wearing anything open-toed or walking around barefoot. But for

00:01:58.420 those who do enjoy it, hey, today's the day to get out there and show it off to the world.

00:02:03.100 Again, watch where you're going to go do it, though. Downtown Calgary, I wouldn't recommend

00:02:06.260 it. There's just far too many nasty things on the ground that you may encounter and cause you

00:02:11.500 difficulty. But again, what's a day without observing what's so important day by day?

00:02:16.060 Okay, we do have a number of guests on today. It's a busy one. I got Jeff Park with the Alberta

00:02:21.540 Parents Union. He's going to be coming in studio in a little while and talking with me.

00:02:25.220 And they're a new organization that's been going around. They got a lot of meetings set up

00:02:29.300 throughout Alberta. And, you know, their name sort of says it's a parents union. It's talking

00:02:33.840 about education. I think education reform, education options. And we really need that

00:02:37.880 in this province. These guys are organized and out there to try and get those needs filled.

00:02:42.780 so we'll have a conversation with him. Kinga Zentner and Celeste Mint with Guided Journeys

00:02:49.240 Foundation. These guys are in southern Alberta, and the Guided Journeys Foundation is a palliative

00:02:55.040 care center. It's a place, well, where they set up to help people, I guess, enter the great hereafter

00:03:01.220 and pass on. And it's a part of health care we don't talk about a lot, actually, or even enough,

00:03:07.380 but I mean, it's the final part, and we do have to address it. It's something I don't care for

00:03:11.400 talking about myself as I'm terrified of death, but all the same, it has to be discussed. So it'll

00:03:16.960 be a good conversation with them as well. And then I'm going to round it out with Tony Bernardo from

00:03:22.060 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Of course, I'm certain he's going to have a lot to say

00:03:26.880 on Justin Trudeau's latest legislation looking to, well, freeze handgun sales and probably,

00:03:33.080 I think, moving on to banning them all together in the long run. But we'll see what Tony has to

00:03:36.560 say about that. So a pretty packed show today. So let's see what I'm wound up about today. And

00:03:42.740 it's not that hard to find the city of Calgary. And this is this applies to anybody with a

00:03:46.800 municipal government. It really does. So I mean, despite never having campaigned on it,

00:03:51.080 the first thing Jody Gondek did is the newly elected mayor of Calgary was to declare a climate

00:03:55.700 emergency. Her declaration was received with all the approval of a fart at a funeral. Undeterred,

00:04:02.840 Gondek continued with her climate crusade and managed to get the Calgary Event Center project

00:04:07.600 canceled within her first month as mayor due to rising costs, not the least of which were new

00:04:13.320 climate change measures being applied to the project unexpectedly by the city. With all these

00:04:17.780 efforts, Gondek managed to win the dubious honor of being the least popular newly elected Calgarian 0.61

00:04:22.340 mayor in living memory, as her approval numbers plummeted to 38% within months of being elected.

00:04:27.960 There is an emergency in Calgary, and citizens want it addressed. That emergency has nothing

00:04:32.060 to do with the climate, however. I mean, over the course of the pandemic, Calgary's downtown has

00:04:36.240 deteriorated into something akin to a dystopian scene from a movie. Ground-level businesses are

00:04:41.660 all graced with for-lease signs, while 30% of the office spaces remain vacant. Addicts and homeless

00:04:46.880 people are everywhere, while discarded needles and human waste have become common sites on the

00:04:51.680 streets in downtown Calgary. People don't feel safe downtown in response. Calgary constantly

00:04:57.440 attacks their police force, though, with threats of defunding and demoralizing them with the order

00:05:01.780 removal of a patch that commemorated fallen officers. It's not going to make us any safer,

00:05:06.340 guys. Calgary's transit service is still at only 60% of the use it was prior to the pandemic. The

00:05:12.380 reason, again, for this is clear. Addicts are passed out in bus shelters. The only thing that

00:05:16.800 drowns out the smell of piss on trains is the wafts of meth smoke as it's openly consumed on

00:05:21.840 the cars. People have been randomly attacked on train platforms, and the city closed a number

00:05:26.940 of expensive train stations rather than deal with the addicts who had set up camp within them.

00:05:31.780 The city's latest effort to get people to use transit is an initiative to cut fares in half for a couple of months.

00:05:37.240 They have also implemented a policy calling for heavy fines for a person if they can't call a woman on a sidewalk.

00:05:43.780 But they have no plans on dealing with aggressive addicts.

00:05:46.900 Even if transit was free, people aren't going to ride it if they don't feel safe.

00:05:51.000 But these cloistered, naive city councillors will never understand this as they drive and park in their secure indoor parkade.

00:05:57.360 Whether Calgarians like it or not, Gondek's climate crusade is the city's top priority,

00:06:02.000 and the climate plan the Calgary's administration released is shocking.

00:06:06.840 Calgary's climate change plan is set to come in at a cost of $87 billion over the next few decades.

00:06:13.580 It's not a typo. That's not misreading.

00:06:16.200 $87 billion in one city, with fewer than a million people of taxpaying status in the city.

00:06:22.340 that amounts to over $87,000 per taxpayer or about $3,100 a year. So I mean, think of that

00:06:30.860 in a household with a number of people. What are we looking at? $7,000 tax increase to do this?

00:06:35.360 The plan sets an impossible bar of becoming a net zero city in emissions by 2050, along with

00:06:41.200 forcing 60% of Calgarians to travel without personal vehicles. They will have somehow

00:06:45.840 eliminated all non-electrical vehicles by then, as well, by the way. New building codes and

00:06:52.400 retrofitting is going to cost a fortune. Calgary is already in an economic crisis, and these

00:06:56.520 ludicrous regulations are going to make the city an investment pariah. Neighboring municipalities

00:07:00.620 have been reaping the benefits of Calgary's woke administration as citizens and businesses alike

00:07:05.480 have been fleeing the city to escape the taxes and regulation. The city's latest plan is going

00:07:09.760 to cause nothing short of an outright evacuation. The bill for the city's climate action dreams are

00:07:14.820 only going to be filled with massive tax increases upon businesses and homes.

00:07:19.820 The actions of the city are only going to exacerbate the existing problems downtown.

00:07:23.740 Calgary's downtown is going to be increasingly morbid,

00:07:26.020 and budgets are going to fall short as producers flee the city.

00:07:29.420 Calgary's myopic.

00:07:31.360 Mayor and city council will likely only respond with further tax hikes to fill the budget void.

00:07:35.360 They can't seem to think any farther than that.

00:07:38.180 This city, the once and great thriving city of Calgary,

00:07:41.740 is on the path of becoming another Detroit,

00:07:43.500 or maybe San Francisco, where one has to avoid stepping in human excrement while trying to 0.98

00:07:47.340 navigate through the endless tent cities. Calgary is far from alone in this. Many municipalities 0.62

00:07:51.640 have allowed their governance to be taken over by delusional woke politicians, and we're all

00:07:56.200 paying a hard price for it. And in the end, the responsibility still falls on the voters.

00:08:00.360 If we keep refusing to pay attention to who's running for office, it's inevitable that a gang 0.94

00:08:05.220 of clowns is going to rise to the top, as they have in Calgary. We keep our eyes too focused on 0.88

00:08:09.780 federal-provincial politics at times and forget who's controlling our lives locally.

00:08:14.160 For that electoral error, Calgary and many other cities are on the road to economic ruin,

00:08:18.540 and it won't do a damn thing to help the environment. Pay attention, folks. It's only

00:08:23.100 going to get worse. All right, let's get on with some news here and talk to Melanie Risden in the

00:08:29.500 newsroom and see what else is happening out there. Hey, Mel, how's it going? Good. How are you?

00:08:34.720 I'm all right. Outside of your ranch?

00:08:36.360 I'm just trying to well thankfully I'm just outside of the city though they always find

00:08:40.560 ways to nickel and dime you on fees and I pay taxes in other ways in the city but

00:08:44.620 just trying to figure out how I'll come up with that budget to cover this this plan to save the

00:08:48.460 world yeah it seems it seems strange too again my my whole take on it is you know being penalized

00:08:56.500 when we you know in many circumstances don't even have alternatives yet so very strange and in fact

00:09:03.660 we do have that story on the website. Our reporter Amanda Brown has dug into that climate initiative

00:09:11.000 that is going to, as you mentioned, Corey, cost us up to the tune of $87 billion over the coming

00:09:19.340 decades for this municipal climate plan in Calgary. It's going to be a pricey one. We have some great

00:09:26.520 stories up. One from the World Health Organization regarding the unsuccessful bid to forward its

00:09:35.320 pandemic treaty. It's now concluded at the World Health Assembly and several politicians from

00:09:41.760 around the world have actually come forward to sort of call it a victory, including our CPC

00:09:49.060 leadership candidate and MP Leslyn Lewis. So we've got that story up on the site. Saskatchewan

00:09:55.620 Premier Scott Moe appoints the province's first female justice minister during Tuesday's Cabinet

00:10:02.740 shuffle. We've got another story on opposition leader Candice Bergen. She's calling out the

00:10:07.620 Prime Minister for penalizing Canadians at the pump on purpose, just sort of continuing to fortify

00:10:15.940 the fact that he is looking to pull investment from Canada's energy sector.

00:10:24.260 Bank of Canada has raised interest rates yet again. So if you have a mortgage coming up for

00:10:31.060 renewal soon, sounds like those rates are expected to continue to climb over the next year or so. So

00:10:38.120 lock them in as soon as you can. Vaccine mandates have led to the discharge or discipline of about

00:10:46.040 1,600 soldiers within Canada. Also, speaking of soldiers in Canada, we've got a column coming out

00:10:54.340 from our Linda Slobodian with regard to how veterans or Canadian veterans are waiting just

00:11:01.740 an absolutely agonizing long period of time to access their disability benefits, in some cases

00:11:09.300 up to two years before they're able to access the benefits that they need to deal with injuries,

00:11:16.460 PTSD, things like that. So just a very sad story there for the people, for the women and men who

00:11:22.380 have served our country. We also have a story up from our BC reporter, Reid, who looked into BC

00:11:31.000 being the first province to decriminalize cocaine, meth, and ecstasy. So going a little bit beyond

00:11:38.340 the um the marijuana uh drug of choice and uh we've got another column coming out from our

00:11:45.780 mike thomas who says trudeau is an authoritarian creep so you can uh dig into that he's got

00:11:53.060 comments from uh several people and our reporter amanda brown is digging into a story on tim

00:11:58.900 horton's app i don't know corey are you a tim hortons fan or do you drink tim horton's coffee

00:12:04.580 no their coffee is vile and overrated but uh i gotta admit jane is an addict to it so i've

00:12:09.460 consumed a fair amount uh while we have to you know it's easier than fighting over which drive

00:12:13.300 through we're going to go to right and same with my husband a big fan of the tim's coffee he has

00:12:18.500 the tim's app i'm not sure if your wife does but apparently uh it's come out now that the app has

00:12:24.260 almost continuously been tracking people with the app uh through geo locations so we'll have that

00:12:31.700 story coming up here fairly soon yeah so you can't even buy a cup of coffee without uh losing your

00:12:37.620 rights to privacy well again we do it willingly we're not paying attention we install these apps

00:12:41.620 and we'll see as that story develops you know maybe somewhere in the small print when that

00:12:46.100 app was installed on their phones or whatever there was something saying they were going to do

00:12:49.780 it and people didn't pay attention well and that's a good point it's a good point those uh all of

00:12:55.220 those uh those little um you know uh things that you're signing off on when you accept the app you

00:13:02.260 you really might want to take some time to read some of those yeah the small print it'll get you

00:13:06.820 every time i still remember uh buying into getting i think it was you know like a free cassette every

00:13:11.700 a few months from columbia house or something and i didn't read the small pit and those

00:13:15.300 print those guys were after me for years afterwards years oh i know it was hard i had that too

00:13:19.860 it was hard to get out of that one right on okay well thanks melanie lots to to cover and lots to

00:13:25.940 uh write on as always so i appreciate you giving us the update and i'll talk to you later of course

00:13:32.580 yes that's our melanie risden you can watch she's been doing the news reads as well you can see the

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00:14:50.180 And as you can see, more and more stories every day of these check-ins.

00:14:53.300 You know, Dave and I used to have to babble for a long time.

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00:15:01.340 But now, many, many stories from all across the country and reporters all over the place.

00:15:05.540 So, Laura Watson asking, if we subscribe, will you track your customers?

00:15:10.160 Fair enough question, I guess.

00:15:11.740 the tech area is outside of mine. There'll be some degree of tracking of it. I mean, we need

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00:16:05.880 what stories are they drawn to if we know an age demographic. All of these things,

00:16:09.760 every business looks into this. I mean, the data is very, very valuable. So I mean, I don't really

00:16:15.220 blame the businesses for going out to get it. But at the same time, you can't do it. You can't sneak

00:16:20.620 to do it. And you can't be tracking people. The thing with Tim Hortons, that app was tracking

00:16:23.520 where they go and everything. And that's not necessary, or at least it's far, far more intrusive

00:16:30.120 than I think anybody signing up for it realized they were getting into. So we won't be chasing

00:16:38.040 you down, tracking you that far. Though I guess if you sign up and you subscribe, you know, we'll

00:16:41.820 give you a subscription reminders and things like that. We also get a newsletter that comes every

00:16:44.920 day. So that way in the morning you can get up, see what's on top of the news in your email

00:16:48.300 and what's happening there. But no, we won't be tracking you too intrusively. We just want your

00:16:55.280 subscription and your viewership, which we appreciate. Jet Gorgon saying, don't forget,

00:16:59.340 yesterday was vulva and vagina day. An MP in parliament said so. Yes, I saw that. I retweeted 0.99

00:17:05.240 that video because i couldn't even believe it when i saw it on twitter yesterday and she stood

00:17:09.020 up and that's what it's all about uh yesterday was the day to get up and celebrate vulvas and 0.99

00:17:14.360 vaginas uh good on them i guess there should be nothing shameful about having a vulva or vagina 0.99

00:17:19.400 but i mean i don't know if we need a member of parliament to stand up and and declare that we 0.99

00:17:23.340 all celebrate it i believe larry flint has been celebrating it excellently on the pages of hustler

00:17:27.700 magazine since the 70s or 80s or so and now on the internet it's celebrated all over the place

00:17:33.580 if you don't have your safe search turned off or on, but all the same, this is what our

00:17:38.800 parliamentarians are doing. This is where our money is being spent. And this is the important

00:17:43.940 things they want to address. I can't wait to see some of the other things they'll come up with in

00:17:49.960 there. It's funny, you know, there's some of the comedy and things like that just seem to

00:17:54.160 right themselves with what our elected members do in there. You know, meanwhile, they're

00:18:00.700 we've got big issues going on. The authoritarian trend. I mean, I'm getting really,

00:18:09.400 really distressed and disturbed with where our government's going. Every move they do

00:18:14.280 is another move to infringe on our freedoms. I mean, they're fixated on it. They're fixated on

00:18:20.180 it. They, you know, with the C7, that's, or S7, it's a Senate bill. And that's where they want

00:18:28.620 to give customs agents the ability to actually search and rifle through your phones and laptops,

00:18:33.060 your data, and get into it. That one's being fought out in Parliament. C-11, C-18, those are both

00:18:37.660 digital bills, again, which want to control what you can see, what you can communicate, what media

00:18:42.860 outlets are official, which aren't. Control, control, control. Of course, the firearm seizure,

00:18:48.260 handguns, they're after them. They're taking them. That's their next push. Vaccine mandates,

00:18:54.060 as we spoke of, they won't get dropped. They will not back off on this. They're fixated on it. 0.86

00:18:58.620 There's no scientific basis, there's no medical evidence, there's no good reason for the federal government to maintain these vaccine mandates.

00:19:05.440 But they won't stop, they won't back off on it.

00:19:09.740 This government is, well, I mean, what was the other article?

00:19:14.720 Mike Thomas called him, Trudeau, a creepy authoritarian.

00:19:18.360 Yeah, I think it's a fantastic description. 1.00

00:19:21.680 And meanwhile, they do their other things, you know, hey squirrel, it's vagina and vulva day. 1.00

00:19:26.720 while we seize all your property and firearms. 0.98

00:19:30.020 This is a very distressing place we're in.

00:19:33.740 And I don't know.

00:19:36.200 You can just keep reporting on it,

00:19:37.440 fighting back, pushing, voting.

00:19:39.380 Again, I've said it before.

00:19:40.320 I said it again.

00:19:40.840 It's going to take...

00:19:41.660 Canada's broken.

00:19:42.620 It's broken.

00:19:43.640 I don't know when it'll happen,

00:19:44.720 but in the long run,

00:19:46.420 we have to tear it down and rebuild it.

00:19:51.940 There has to be a successful independence movement somewhere.

00:19:54.600 I don't know if we're in Quebec or Alberta.

00:19:55.720 I don't know if it'll be 10 years or 20 years or next year, but there's no fixing this mess.

00:20:00.260 There's no fixing this mess. The only question is how far we're going to slide before we get there.

00:20:05.800 All right, let me reach into one of our sponsors here and talk briefly about that.

00:20:10.160 And that is Bitcoin Well. These guys have been sponsoring us for quite some time.

00:20:14.260 We usually have a lot of discussion after that. People are mixed on digital currencies,

00:20:17.400 whether they're a good idea or a bad idea, which currency, how you get involved in it.

00:20:21.020 Fair enough. Everything's open for discussion. That's what we're about.

00:20:23.440 So Bitcoin, well, anyhow, though, one of the things I like to promote with them is they're safe.

00:20:27.940 They are, I don't know how to talk about, you know, whether Bitcoin itself or digital currencies are safe in the long run as a good investment or bad.

00:20:33.920 I don't know. I'm not an investment advisor.

00:20:35.500 If you're going to get into it, though, they are a publicly traded company in Alberta.

00:20:40.960 They're real. There's so many scammers out there involved with things.

00:20:43.520 These guys are not that, of course, at all.

00:20:45.320 And the best way you can prove that is sitting down.

00:20:46.860 They offer face-to-face service one-on-one.

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00:20:55.980 part of Canada, you might have to do it through Zoom, but you will get to speak to the real

00:20:59.300 person. They'll lead you through it. That's their whole thing is facilitating the transaction,

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00:21:13.680 They got all sorts of stuff on bitcoinwell.com, resources, how to learn what it's about, how you can buy or sell it, where you can practically use it, you know, whether utility bills or savings plans, any of those things.

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00:21:31.040 And again, take control of your money.

00:21:33.740 Yeah, what do you see here?

00:21:34.440 Jet Gorgon's doing his RPAL course next week.

00:21:38.840 Hope he can get a license before the kill date.

00:21:41.480 Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:42.040 I mean, you know, the RPAL is going to be pretty pointless pretty soon. For people unfamiliar with

00:21:47.520 it, that's a, for a restricted firearm of any kind, whether it's a handgun or I believe there's

00:21:51.820 some restricted long guns as well. And I mean, some of the other crap they've packed into that 0.93

00:21:56.620 bill, it's not just the handguns they're after. So the capacity reduction of, for long guns and 0.83

00:22:03.560 rifles, everything's incremental. They're always digging at us and it's not making us any safer.

00:22:07.380 So now any rifle, no matter what, cannot hold, or at least when this legislation goes through,

00:22:15.800 will not be able to have a capacity of more than five shots. It's, you know, pretty functional,

00:22:22.900 I guess, with five shots already, but it wasn't a problem having more. In fact, larger rifles

00:22:26.580 already had that limitation on them. You had to modify the capacity to make sure it couldn't take

00:22:31.500 any more than five. But there was exceptions made for rimfire rifles, which are typically

00:22:37.460 very small caliber firearms. So yeah, that's one of the ones I have at home, a little rimfire 22.

00:22:44.840 Now, it will be criminalized because that little rimfire 22 can hold 10

00:22:50.020 bullets. So what? From five to 10. It's just an inconvenience. It just means I have to change

00:22:57.600 eclipse a heck of a lot more if I'm out messing around shooting targets or whatnot. And it's

00:23:05.340 not making anybody safer. There hasn't been mass shootings happening in Canada, period,

00:23:10.380 or particularly not with a Rimfire 22. These are the things you shoot gophers with. 1.00

00:23:14.380 Or again, the targets and things like this. But this is what the government's cracking down on.

00:23:18.180 They're illegal. They're ignoring the problem and going after, you know, legal firearms owners who

00:23:26.880 weren't causing issues. Cheryl Don said they've been waiting for their pal and our pal since May

00:23:31.380 31st, 2021. Yeah, that's a long haul. Yeah, my last one took a long time to get into it. Did get

00:23:38.020 it, but boy, it was something else. Let's see. Yeah, so that Dallin guy is saying every rimfire

00:23:46.480 lever gun shotgun that holds more than five. Yeah, so 30-30 lever action guns hold six. So

00:23:52.420 something will have to be modified to keep that legal, I imagine. And it's just expensive and a

00:23:57.320 pain and so on. Wildrose saying, you heard I'm speaking at a Wildrose event soon? Yes, actually,

00:24:03.440 on the 11th, I'll be talking. Again, I'm not part of the Wildrose party. I'm not endorsing or

00:24:08.420 anything. I was invited to a town hall, though, which is fine. And of course, I support, you know,

00:24:12.080 I would for any party if I have the time, because I like to speak on these issues.

00:24:15.660 And I'll be speaking there in Red Deer about alternative media and independent media.

00:24:22.860 So, you know, subjects I'm very familiar with and its impacts on politics, its development and its future.

00:24:28.560 So it'll be an extended rant.

00:24:29.900 I think Paul was saying I'll get about 15 minutes up there to bend people's ears and we'll have a discussion of those things.

00:24:37.860 So it should be a good afternoon, I think.

00:24:40.000 But we'll see.

00:24:40.540 Getting people out in June can be tough.

00:24:41.780 um some people some somebody's saying uh some guns can't be modified for five or less without

00:24:47.900 destroying the gun yeah i don't know i'm not a firearms expert i mean i i own some firearms i

00:24:51.660 enjoy them responsibly as we see if they're charged or convicted with anything i wouldn't

00:24:55.080 hurt anybody but i'm one of the ones i guess that gets targeted uh i don't know the ins and

00:25:00.380 outs of every particular firearm and that's part of what the government takes advantage of too is

00:25:04.680 you know people don't necessarily know what's going on and they come after it all right so

00:25:09.040 let's see. MPs are endorsing ethics reforms. Now, this is interesting. It was a little while ago,

00:25:14.960 the members of parliament had shot down a motion to raise the fines because the fines for a breach

00:25:22.020 in ethic violations was a $500 maximum. And, you know, it's ridiculous. These are some pretty 0.84

00:25:29.300 well-paid people. That's not really going to be a big deterrent for them to breach their ethics.

00:25:34.640 But still, they felt it would be unreasonable to raise it higher.

00:25:38.520 But now at least they've endorsed 169 to 153 in a vote.

00:25:43.680 Endorsed, well, an ethics committee report calling for tougher laws on conflict of interest.

00:25:51.140 You know, small victories will take what we can.

00:25:53.360 And it's just a committee report.

00:25:54.520 Doesn't mean it's in.

00:25:55.200 But they're moving a little bit towards the right direction, very slowly and agonizingly.

00:26:00.820 So I imagine maybe just after whenever the heck we get rid of Prime Minister Ding Dong there, we might be able to get some changes in.

00:26:08.040 But when you look at what happened with the We Foundation and all that sort of thing and Aga Khan with his ongoing constant chronic ethics breaches,

00:26:15.680 he's not going to want to have to pay any more than he has to before he gets out of there.

00:26:21.040 But either way, surprisingly, you know, they seem to be shutting down every other effort.

00:26:26.040 they did vote to embrace that bitter reform. So that's a little bit of good news.

00:26:32.660 Let's see. My guest appears to be running late, so we'll just keep babbling until he arrives.

00:26:37.880 That's all right. There's always lots to babble about. So let's see. Here we go again. You know,

00:26:43.820 as we're getting these Senate hearings and things like that, we get a lot of stories on it. Dave

00:26:46.660 writes those to put them up again just to keep, you know, plugging for our own business as well

00:26:51.980 while we're at it, but it's true with all these Senate meetings and committee meetings. This is

00:26:56.560 where the meat and potatoes really are in politics. And it's the boring stuff, but it's where they do

00:27:01.640 stuff. And we've got to watch for it. So there's been a lot of follow-up on this convoy. And

00:27:06.360 police force by police force, we've been seeing them all coming up saying, we didn't call for

00:27:14.060 the Emergencies Act. The chief of lying there, the minister, Mendoncino, is constantly saying

00:27:20.060 the police are the reason they wanted to bring in the Emergencies Act. And they can't find a

00:27:24.160 police force anywhere in Canada. Another one came up recently said, no, it wasn't us. The RCMP said

00:27:29.180 it wasn't them. And the Ottawa police said it wasn't them. And I think the OPP said it wasn't

00:27:32.720 them. So I don't know if he's going to be able to find, you know, some distant police force

00:27:38.680 somewhere to pretend and claim that they asked for it. So as we keep following up, there's just no

00:27:43.800 justifying the imposition of the Emergencies Act. The government can't do that.

00:27:50.920 Now they're determining that it was hard to quantify the harm.

00:27:55.100 That's the thing.

00:27:55.600 No one could point at anything that made the Freedom Convoy so harmful.

00:28:05.900 Let's see.

00:28:06.480 I'm trying to see this.

00:28:07.420 The pure chaos of the protest.

00:28:09.020 Okay, chaos is fine.

00:28:10.200 But does it call for imposing the Emergencies Act?

00:28:14.060 The compounded result of multiple daily acts of aggression in our downtown made neighborhoods life unbearable.

00:28:19.440 Okay.

00:28:20.060 but uh again the questions were asked well can you talk a little bit about the impact on your

00:28:24.620 health because they're saying there's health impacts um maybe this person said well there's

00:28:28.700 no one act that you could point to that resulted in severe harm but it was many many the bottom

00:28:32.380 way is they're talking in circles these counselors you know because they talked about how it was

00:28:35.900 everything from ptsd to hearing loss to harm to loss of sleep to stress you name it

00:28:44.460 and uh they can't justify it later though when asked we had seniors terrified leaving the

00:28:49.420 the apartment, this person said. People with rainbow flags had windows broken and defecation

00:28:53.680 on their front lawn. Yep. Nobody can prove it. Nobody's seen it. She said, oh, it's based on 0.97

00:28:59.340 anecdotes from Twitter users. Oh, yes, Twitter. There's a solid area of information. That's a

00:29:06.440 great spot for good news, right? You can believe everything you see on Twitter, can't you?

00:29:11.840 I mean, I like Twitter. I get on there. That's where I roll up my sleeves and really get into

00:29:15.580 it in politics, you know, and, and roll in the mud with people. But I mean, you can find news as it

00:29:21.400 breaks on Twitter, and you can find some interesting things. But that's an area with a huge grain of

00:29:25.320 salt. And we get these clowns. It's not just some moron. It is a moron. But you see, this is a moron 0.99

00:29:31.040 in an elected position. This was a counselor. This is one of the guns, again, giving out the reasons 1.00

00:29:36.160 why they felt they had to have the Emergencies Act imposed. They did it based on tweets. I don't

00:29:43.300 think that's quite enough, guys. Are we going to learn about this from this? I don't know. I don't

00:29:48.580 know. Jet Gorgon saying, did Alberta decriminalize hard drugs too? No, no, that's a BC initiative 0.57

00:29:54.940 that's going on out there. I don't, I don't know if that's necessarily all that bad a move. It's,

00:30:02.980 you got to remember, there's a difference between decriminalization and legalization.

00:30:06.740 So it's still not legal fully to carry some of, you know, meth or cocaine or things around in a

00:30:13.080 small amount. It's just that it's not a crime exactly. I know it's a narrow difference. It's

00:30:19.600 more like getting into the speeding ticket realm rather than the crime realm. And the bottom line

00:30:24.540 is the addicts, criminalizing them, it just isn't doing any favors. It doesn't work. What help is it

00:30:32.140 in charging somebody for having a half a gram of meth or something? I don't want to think about

00:30:36.820 people having it and I don't want to see it proliferating. But no charges or threats or fines

00:30:42.020 stop these addicts. These are people that are out of control. And for the larger amounts of

00:30:48.240 those drugs, they're still very much illegal, and as much so as before. And that's where you

00:30:52.900 want to focus on is the traffickers, the unprincipled people, getting those into the

00:30:57.380 hands of others. And that's that difference between decriminalization and legalization.

00:31:03.640 So it's an important difference and distinguishing between them. I'm just saying,

00:31:10.500 I don't know if it's as big a deal as people worry about. I mean, it's not saying you can

00:31:14.360 just rampantly buy and sell hard drugs or that they want more people to use it.

00:31:18.560 It's just a means of reprioritizing. I mean, our courts are overloaded, our jails are overloaded.

00:31:24.340 I'd rather see them filled with violent criminals if we have to. And the people who are dealing

00:31:30.040 these drugs, the people who are at the heart of this issue, rather than the consumers who,

00:31:35.140 as you go out and see those zombies on the street, they're problematic and they commit

00:31:38.420 some crimes. And that's a separate issue. But the actual possession of the drugs themselves,

00:31:44.340 I don't know if that's really actually helping at all. So, you know, I think we're reading a

00:31:49.460 little too much into that. But that's where more of the libertarian in me comes in than the classic

00:31:52.700 conservative sort. So it looks like our guest is just getting set up here shortly. So that's great.

00:31:58.280 And this is Jeff Park. I've been looking forward to speaking with him. They've got the initiative

00:32:02.880 going with the Alberta Parents Union. You know, this is an area that people aren't speaking enough

00:32:07.500 for themselves. I mean, when I talked about the apathy and the damage it causes in civic

00:32:11.280 politics and so on, our apathy and not advocating for ourselves and for our children has let things

00:32:17.360 slide as well. So we become beholden to teachers unions and school boards that don't necessarily

00:32:22.320 reflect the needs or wants of the parents and the students who are going to be the beneficiaries or

00:32:27.240 victims or whatever policies we come up with. So without further ado, let's get to Mr. Park. Hey,

00:32:32.720 how are you doing? Doing well, doing well. Thank you so much for having me. Good. Glad you made

00:32:36.560 in there. Yeah. It is a bit of a maze the first time. It can be. Yes. Yeah. You just remember

00:32:42.240 that middle building. Yeah. Okay. So we've got you here and I kind of framed it a bit,

00:32:46.400 but maybe I've got that correct on what your initiative is. I know you got a lot of meetings

00:32:49.720 coming up, but perhaps, I guess if you could start just in a nutshell, what is the Alberta

00:32:53.320 Parents Union and what are you looking to do? Sure. The Alberta Parents Union in the old-fashioned

00:32:59.020 sense of the word of people coming together for a common goal where parents who want to have more

00:33:06.420 of a voice, more impact in the K-12 education system.

00:33:11.800 So I've been hearing from a lot of parents,

00:33:15.540 especially over the last two years,

00:33:18.100 about how things have just gotten too big, too far away

00:33:21.920 from the parents, where we have a system that's

00:33:26.580 supposed to be designed around parental authority

00:33:30.260 and around parents' driving quality in the education

00:33:33.960 system, especially to the extent that the money does follow the child to the school of the parent's

00:33:40.120 choice. But that started to erode and we're getting away from that and too much reliance on

00:33:44.540 the so-called experts when the real experts on any individual kid are the parents of that kid.

00:33:50.540 Well, that's it. And we have, I mean, just speaking for myself, one of the things I get

00:33:54.540 frustrated with is teachers, unions, or other advocates. And so I would say it keeps pointing

00:33:59.600 out all the time for things like standardized testing. Well, every child is different. Everyone

00:34:03.000 learns differently and we can't have that standardized testing to measure. I kind of

00:34:07.020 agree. That's fair enough. The parents know as well. Their children respond, this child responds

00:34:10.920 to this, this doesn't with that. But if anybody talks about changing the status quo from a standard,

00:34:14.680 well, they all of a sudden, no, no, no, no, no. We have to keep the public system only one model,

00:34:18.360 one curriculum, no matter what. And the parents are ignored. It's trying to crack that double

00:34:23.440 standard a little. Absolutely. And, you know, if you were to suggest moving to the system that we

00:34:29.220 have in education in any other area, including health care,

00:34:33.980 by the way, where you take your pile of taxpayer money

00:34:39.240 with you to whichever doctor you choose,

00:34:41.940 and the bad doctors go out of business

00:34:44.200 because no one picks them.

00:34:46.780 But imagine that we said we're going

00:34:50.140 to residentially assign you grocery stores,

00:34:52.380 and you have to go shop for groceries

00:34:54.300 at the nearest grocery store.

00:34:55.980 And it's a monopoly option.

00:34:57.180 You don't get any other choices.

00:34:58.540 if you do, you've got to pay for it again. You've got to pay the grocery store closest to you and

00:35:02.940 then pay again for a grocery store that will actually serve you and meet your needs. Everyone

00:35:07.900 would think that was insane, but because it's the status quo in education, it's considered

00:35:14.220 radical to violate it. Yeah, so you're looking at offering, you're promoting choice in education,

00:35:19.500 then. I mean, we've got a few options right now, charter schools, and they're starting to grow and

00:35:23.740 develop, but they've got a great deal of limitations. So you're looking to expand more

00:35:27.740 of those alternatives yes more choices less limitations on those choices you know they're

00:35:32.460 uh i mean it's like so alberta uh the only province in canada that allows charter schools

00:35:39.660 and that's great uh but it it's like when we introduced them we were almost afraid they would

00:35:44.220 be too successful they started out capped the total number of charter schools there no online

00:35:49.580 charter schools no co-location between two charter schools it's very regulated yeah it's all this

00:35:56.460 uh uh all these all these hurdles like we were too afraid they would be too successful and and

00:36:02.140 that's that's so much of the uh choice in education it's almost almost afraid that it'll be too

00:36:07.580 successful undermine uh uh and and uh undermine the the world-class public system when really

00:36:16.460 it the we have a world-class system because of the choice and competition like in everything else

00:36:23.740 competition drives quality and so even for the majority of kids that are never going to go to

00:36:28.940 anything but a but a fully-ledded public school the quality is driven for them as well by those

00:36:34.860 other options being there yeah and we're just seeing a lot of controversial subjects entering

00:36:39.420 curriculums or getting into classrooms that not every parent is comfortable with and when they

00:36:43.820 again they're their children essentially locked into one system you have no choice or direction

00:36:48.300 towards what they're going to be learning i mean there's always going to be a core curriculum i

00:36:51.980 imagine you have to have that but or core standards yes yes but with some

00:36:56.840 choice parents could choose to put their children into facilities that might not

00:37:01.520 be putting some of that other messaging out there sure kids are not one-size-fits-all

00:37:05.600 education is not one-size-fits-all the idea that there would even be one one

00:37:10.640 size fits all curriculum for four million Albertans is is is kind of crazy

00:37:16.520 So what we need is for, and then if all we can do is change these things from the top down, then all we can do is have these super politicized fights where one side wins and one side licks their wounds and is going to get revenge the next time.

00:37:35.920 And so the other option is pluralism and choice where, where we empower parents to go to whatever choices and the choices that succeed are the choices we'll see more of. And, and that's how, that's how we, we get in just like in every other thing, like buying groceries, how we get quality.

00:37:57.240 Yeah, so I mean, one of the arguments against, and I'll throw that out there, it grinds against some people's, I mean, you're talking something along the lines of like a voucher system, that's the term that's used, the money's following a student. I think it's great. So but one of the things some parents get upset with is saying, well, if you're in a rural community, you don't have the local options, my child won't be able to attend that diverse variety of things. And those resources will be pulled away from our communities. And they feel it's unfair, and that their child is at a disadvantage. How can you address that?

00:38:25.800 well so there are fewer options in rural areas because of regulation because because co-location

00:38:32.760 because uh because these things are are difficult to start and maintain we don't have that problem

00:38:39.000 so i mean look when the when the like it or load that when the government got out of the way and

00:38:45.400 and cannabis shops were allowed to pop up they popped up all over rural and urban it didn't

00:38:50.200 matter uh so in the same sense when when the government gets out of the way to allow education

00:38:56.600 options to pop up you know uh india has supposedly a uh fully funded public system from the top down

00:39:06.280 but what's really helped india do so well in education is they've they've got all these

00:39:12.280 tremendously low-cost private schools all over in every little town uh and it's just because

00:39:17.320 the government, even when they might have wanted to get in the way of that, have not been able to

00:39:22.380 get in the way of it. So it's let a thousand flowers bloom. And that's the sort of thing

00:39:26.340 in our rural areas, it's the same solution. And it's good. I mean, as I keep getting back to,

00:39:31.500 I mean, they try to talk out of both sides of their mouths, the defenders of the status quo.

00:39:35.340 I don't want to label everybody. There's some fantastic teachers and people within the unions

00:39:39.840 even and so on. But like speaking for myself, I was a pain in the butt student, low marks,

00:39:46.040 low marks. My parents finally outsourced it for some discipline and sent me to an all-boys school 0.99

00:39:50.460 in Seanigan Lake, BC. And, you know, lo and behold, in a discipline environment, my marks shot right

00:39:54.900 up. But that's me. Another student might have responded terribly in that environment and done

00:40:00.420 very poorly. And I mean, it's just that choice. It's that recognizing that there's differences,

00:40:05.900 and some people are more inclined to different fields and different types of learnings than

00:40:10.000 others. And, you know, I just, we're really doing our kids a disservice, I think, with a stubborn

00:40:14.100 clinging to the centralized, you know, one-size-fits-all system.

00:40:18.980 Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, again, as with everything else, we know that more options,

00:40:26.280 more choices is the way forward with better quality. It's the idea that one education

00:40:36.700 minister or one educrat in Edmonton can know what's best for my child better than I do is

00:40:45.100 frankly insane to most parents which is why I thought it's important to get the parents organized

00:40:50.620 around this because I think it's just natural to most parents to realize that there might be

00:40:58.300 people more expert in curriculum development or pedagogy or any number of other things

00:41:02.620 but there is no expert more expert in my four children except maybe my wife but i'd even argue

00:41:08.060 that uh but but there is no one more expert in my children than than my children's parents so

00:41:16.620 getting that much inside though uh with the system say where the funding was following the student

00:41:21.580 would that apply then directly to homeschooling if parents choose that as well i mean that the

00:41:25.500 resources coming into the household to choose to be able to do that yeah so there are there

00:41:30.620 are some home educators that don't want that. They think that inevitably the money will come

00:41:36.460 with more government control. We would obviously say that the solution there is to trust the

00:41:41.740 parents and to not bring that. But I think that Alberta's model with funded and unfunded does

00:41:49.420 make sense so that you have that option for home educators who are afraid of regulation following

00:41:57.100 the money um that that we have the unfunded option uh for them but but yes absolutely the um look um

00:42:07.980 just independent schools and uh and home education between uh 2008 and 2018 saved the alberta

00:42:16.380 government 1.9 billion dollars so so look we can and and and the government is still so stingy with

00:42:23.900 with that $850 they give to funded home educators.

00:42:27.500 And it seems like there are almost no controls

00:42:30.320 on the $30,000 they give per student to, say,

00:42:33.300 the Northland School Division, which

00:42:35.340 is one of the most failing school divisions in the province.

00:42:40.220 That's obviously so upside down.

00:42:41.960 So we've got to trust the parents

00:42:45.200 and recognize that we can afford to give more money,

00:42:49.640 and it will save money to let people have these other options

00:42:56.000 and make it more accessible to more families.

00:42:58.440 So your organization now, you're traveling the province.

00:43:01.880 There's a number of meetings and events coming up.

00:43:04.160 So what are you doing, I guess, to bring this about

00:43:06.840 to promote what you wanna do?

00:43:08.660 Sure, so right, as you said, we're traveling the province.

00:43:11.280 We just had a great meeting here in Calgary last night.

00:43:13.780 We're headed to Drumheller tonight

00:43:16.860 And so Drumheller will be the eighth stop.

00:43:20.820 We've got 16 or 17 more after that,

00:43:24.880 trying to just hear from a broad swath of parents

00:43:27.620 all over the province to tell us what our priorities should be,

00:43:31.560 what sort of advocacy they expect to see from us.

00:43:34.360 And those meetings have been going great.

00:43:38.580 And yeah, so the main way we're promoting this

00:43:43.180 is by email.

00:43:44.280 so people can go to albertaparentsunion.ca,

00:43:47.880 great website, and sign up for the mailing list

00:43:50.620 so that they can get our updates about that.

00:43:53.060 But yeah, that's our main task right now

00:43:57.900 is just hearing from the parents

00:43:59.640 and then we'll start the ball rolling

00:44:01.480 on some of that advocacy.

00:44:02.560 Great, and then with that advocacy,

00:44:03.880 well, it looks like we're a year from an election.

00:44:05.500 This is provincial jurisdiction.

00:44:07.700 For what you would like to see,

00:44:09.200 that would involve legislative change then, I imagine,

00:44:12.040 like the Education Act or something

00:44:13.720 has to be changed or amended, the goal, I imagine,

00:44:17.480 would be to encourage the provincial politicians

00:44:19.940 and representatives to reform that system.

00:44:22.480 Sure.

00:44:23.400 Yes, and so it is provincial, but it's also hyper-local.

00:44:28.060 Some of the issues that parents are bringing up

00:44:30.780 are the issues for local school boards to address as well.

00:44:34.540 So we're needing to address these things

00:44:38.620 on both of those levels.

00:44:40.260 And obviously, we see the advantage of devolving more

00:44:44.780 of those decisions down to as local of a level as possible.

00:44:48.580 The kitchen table would be the most local and the best option

00:44:51.900 as far as we're concerned, but down

00:44:55.260 to the individual school level as much as possible,

00:45:00.600 because even the school boards are too big for parents

00:45:04.940 to feel like they're having their voice heard.

00:45:07.020 It's too bureaucratic.

00:45:08.700 And so, yeah, we're also working on driving things down

00:45:13.700 to the more local level,

00:45:14.580 but obviously some of even that

00:45:17.420 requires provincial legislation first.

00:45:20.080 Yeah, and again, these school boards,

00:45:21.700 I mean, some of them, I'm not seeing it as much in Alberta,

00:45:24.380 but there's questionable things,

00:45:25.300 but like that Toronto school board,

00:45:26.700 I mean, they give me more foundation to rant from,

00:45:30.460 and they do, they pride themselves

00:45:31.760 on how many millions of children that they represent

00:45:34.200 or hundreds of thousands,

00:45:35.880 and some of their policies are outright crazy.

00:45:38.100 these are not people I want guiding my children in any sort of way. And I understand they're

00:45:44.000 elected, but obviously they're not serving the parents necessarily that well. But that's a bit

00:45:49.000 of a, it actually gets back to a bit of a rant I had at the start of the show about municipal

00:45:51.920 politics. If we don't get involved and pay attention, these fruit loops will rise to the

00:45:56.660 top and they'll guide policy. So I imagine you're looking to get more civic engagement as well.

00:46:01.420 Absolutely. Well, one of the problems is, you know, if you want to follow the Alberta Teachers

00:46:05.840 association party line and vote for the trustees they want that's really easy it's really easy to

00:46:11.280 know uh it's really easy to know who uh who you should vote for if that's if that's the viewpoint

00:46:16.960 you hold but if you if you want someone who say doesn't want to abolish uh the separate system

00:46:23.840 doesn't want to defund independent schools doesn't want to close down unfunded home education even

00:46:30.000 um then then uh then where do you go and uh and and there is a knowledge gap there so we're also

00:46:38.800 working on on trying to close that be able to reach out to more of these people get them on

00:46:43.840 the record on on the issues and make that available uh to uh regular parents who so that so that they

00:46:50.800 can know who to vote for in this election because you know about half the people who vote for their

00:46:56.160 county counselor will vote for their public school school trustee in the same in the same

00:47:00.720 jurisdiction so and it's because of the lack of knowledge well that's it i mean you ask your

00:47:04.880 average person i gotta admit that i don't know ask your average person who their local school

00:47:08.800 trustees are they probably don't even know the name i can name my mla i can name my member of

00:47:13.520 parliament i can name a bunch of cabinet ministers because i'm a political weenie but school trustees

00:47:17.600 well since my kids aren't in the system any longer either but it's still important sure

00:47:21.520 we forget about that we neglect it and if we neglect any democratic exercise we're not going

00:47:25.120 going to get a better outcome. That's right. That's right. And we know that the people towing

00:47:30.860 the ATA party line are going to show up at these elections. So that leads to this unbalanced

00:47:37.340 system where one side of this argument is heavily overrepresented and we're just not showing up at

00:47:45.780 the table. And decisions are made by the people who show up as always. Well, it sounds like a

00:47:49.820 great initiative and really interesting. So I appreciate you coming in to talk to us about

00:47:53.640 this today and maybe just one more time to the audience you know how can people find you guys

00:47:56.680 make sure you know they can catch these meetings in person if they can and uh and just get more

00:48:00.440 information about your organization in general albertaparentsunion.com.ca sorry albertaparentsunion.ca

00:48:08.920 uh is uh the place to find all of that we've got an events tab that's telling you where

00:48:14.360 now we've got all our events booked we've actually gotten venues everywhere but high level lacrete if

00:48:20.520 if anyone knows anyone there that could get us a spot that's great we're working on that

00:48:24.520 uh might might have that done by the end of the day even but but uh uh but everywhere else in

00:48:30.040 the province we've got books so you can find where we are in your area and then uh and sign up uh

00:48:37.000 sign up for the uh mailing list so that you can know when we're having events in the future as

00:48:42.760 well excellent well thank you again and uh we'll watch your uh movement uh carefully and i'm sure

00:48:48.520 sure we'll probably have you in to talk again. Okay. Thanks so much, Corey. Thank you. So that

00:48:52.340 was Jeff Park with the Alberta Parents Union, a different sort of union altogether when you hear

00:48:56.960 the word union, but they're doing some great work. I really do. It's something we got to address more

00:49:01.500 and I'm guilty of the apathy when it comes to these, you know, school boards and things such

00:49:05.400 as that as well. You got to pay attention. You got to be engaged. I noticed a few commenters

00:49:09.320 bringing up trades, you know, and it's another area that education really falls short in. I

00:49:14.880 graduated high school, mostly graduated either way in 88. It's getting back a ways. And I came

00:49:21.200 out of high school, I guess is a better way to put it. I didn't know what a trade was. I really

00:49:25.020 didn't. I didn't know what an apprenticeship was. I had no idea. At no point in my high school and

00:49:32.180 junior high was I ever even just told, how would you become an electrician if you wanted to do

00:49:36.940 that? Or how would you become a plumber? Now, I grew up in Banff, so maybe there were as many

00:49:40.780 options. But still, I mean, you know, we neglect that. And there was a lot of an attitude. I hope

00:49:46.120 it's better more in schools. It's almost as if either you get a post-secondary degree or you're

00:49:49.820 a janitor and there's no in between. And of course, it's not the case at all. And there's a lot of

00:49:54.260 students that are well drawn to trades and there's nothing wrong with them. You don't see a plumber

00:49:59.820 driving a beat up old car. They're doing quite well for themselves. It's good, secure work.

00:50:03.840 So it's another area that needs some reform and battle. But okay, we're going tight with the

00:50:09.040 guests today. I'll get on to the next ones. I see them in the lobby getting together, and this is a

00:50:12.400 bit of a pivot onto a different subject, and that is with the Guided Journeys Foundation, and they

00:50:17.940 are working on a palliative care center down towards Lethbridge, and we've got, what do we

00:50:24.500 got? Kinga Zentner and Celeste Mint, I believe. I hope I'm not destroying the pronunciation of

00:50:29.800 their names too terribly much, and we'll have a discussion on, well, late-life care, I guess. Hey,

00:50:35.420 guys. How are you doing? Great. Thanks. Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. It's an area

00:50:40.720 that we neglect, I guess, you know, and it's something in healthcare. It is an aspect of

00:50:46.520 healthcare that every one of us is going to need it at some point or another. We want to put it

00:50:51.680 off as long as possible, but we don't like talking about it. So it kind of gets overlooked, I guess

00:50:56.720 you could say. And that's your final care when somebody's ready to pass away. Correct. Yeah.

00:51:03.380 So maybe if I could get one of you to kind of just explain a little bit what

00:51:07.580 your foundation does and what you're looking to do.

00:51:11.660 So what our goal is, is to build a hospice to serve Southern Alberta and

00:51:16.820 the communities of Southern Alberta.

00:51:19.300 So our first goal is to educate people about what palliative care is.

00:51:25.340 Cause like you said, it's a subject that isn't talked about.

00:51:27.940 So palliative care is specialized care given to people that have life limiting illnesses, and also to their families. So our goal is to provide the highest quality of end of life care for people that are on their dying journey.

00:51:49.860 So the specialized care that's given involves multi aspects, it's holistic care. So it not only provides patients with comfort for their physical needs, but also their emotional and psychological and support to the families going through a grieving process after.

00:52:15.040 Yeah. And so, I mean, facilities are limited. I imagine for people like, is there something

00:52:21.880 of a backlog? I think the center that you're looking to expand is, is it going to have 10

00:52:25.760 spaces within it? And it just sounds like a modest amount, even to begin with.

00:52:30.700 Oh, I was just saying, so what kind of accommodations, I guess, are there in

00:52:38.680 Alberta already, and how long are the lists potentially?

00:52:43.160 So at this point, the nearest hospice to Lethbridge is in Okotoks. So there's population

00:52:50.120 of about 300,000 people in Southern Alberta. And every one of us at some point is going to go

00:52:56.840 through that phase of the end of life. So it's important that we start to look at that. Our

00:53:04.680 population down here is becoming more elderly there's just so much there's such a value in

00:53:15.160 having a place like this everybody deserves to have a the best quality of care while they're

00:53:23.400 living and that's what the goal is is to provide that so to have that facility in southern alberta

00:53:32.360 is huge yeah so so guided journeys is a registered charity uh but then is there any public health

00:53:40.760 funding that goes towards uh hospices or is it uh fully kind of charitably funded and then

00:53:46.360 through local fundraising absolutely there is options where we can go through alberta health

00:53:52.120 to have patient care assistants in getting their portion covered what we're really trying to create

00:54:00.760 is to bring our community together and have a 100% community run hospice. It takes a village to

00:54:08.520 raise a child and we feel it's also going to take that same village to help that connection on going

00:54:14.760 home and helping people walk through the death journey and the grief journey.

00:54:21.000 Yeah, and it's for more than just the patient. As you said, it surrounds us for the family. I see

00:54:25.640 I see one of our commenters had pointed out that she had done the palliative care at home when her husband passed.

00:54:31.420 Now, I don't know if that was her choice in that matter, or perhaps for lack of other options of facilities,

00:54:36.900 but does your organization provide resources, though, for people that may want to choose to care for a loved one at home at that point in their life,

00:54:44.080 like aside from being an inpatient circumstance?

00:54:46.620 They do.

00:54:47.260 There is a community palliative care team here that's just got tremendous staff.

00:54:54.080 but the problem with every every person that I've dealt with I've been a palliative care nurse for

00:55:02.200 15 years the first goal they say is to die at home but when the actual time of end-of-life care comes

00:55:09.980 the caregiver hits a point where they need to be a spouse a child and that's where we come in

00:55:17.620 is to provide that environment where it's like a home-like setting and we can provide so much

00:55:25.220 comfort not just to the patient but also to the family. Absolutely we want them to be able to

00:55:31.140 focus on the time that they have left together and continue building memories right up until the end

00:55:36.660 and it really takes away when they have to look after the physical aspects of their loved one

00:55:41.940 during their illness yeah and i mean proximity to family and loved ones is obviously very important

00:55:47.940 with this especially if uh you know people by their peers or others might be mobility challenged

00:55:53.780 or getting in later and as you said i was quite surprised actually that yeah with the province as

00:55:58.260 large as ours and so many people in in left bridge fort mcleod and down south with okotoks being the

00:56:02.740 closest uh center that that's there's definitely uh you need something more locally for sure and

00:56:10.340 Kinga kind of touched on the community-based idea. What the Palliative Institute of Canada

00:56:16.820 is looking at is called Compassionate Communities. Dying isn't just a medical issue, it's definitely

00:56:25.940 a community issue. It impacts the community that you live in, it impacts the family,

00:56:31.540 impacts your religious denomination, it impacts schools when you have children that are in school.

00:56:38.420 that legacy and that life impacts every part of the community. So leaning towards a compassionate

00:56:48.580 community is what the hospice is all about. And you mentioned the importance of family.

00:56:54.900 A hospice provides all the amenities for a family to be there and be present with their loved one.

00:57:02.340 Yes, I believe I read on the website, or at least with the proposed center you want,

00:57:05.940 It would have facilities for overnight stays for family because again,

00:57:10.260 I mean, you want to be as close as possible,

00:57:12.100 as long as possible with somebody at that period.

00:57:14.260 And you don't want to have to step out for the night and miss,

00:57:17.380 I guess what would be the most important moment, I guess you could say.

00:57:23.780 So staffing is another thing. Now, this is such a specialized area of care.

00:57:28.020 I mean, there's only so many people, I guess,

00:57:29.540 with the emotional strength to do something this, you know,

00:57:34.980 personal and important. I would imagine having a brick and mortar local facility would help

00:57:40.900 in building and training a core of staff to be able to manage this as well.

00:57:45.220 Correct. And there's many educational opportunities for people to become certified

00:57:50.400 in palliative care. It is very much a specialty type nursing. The most nursing

00:57:58.440 is focused on life preserving with palliative care it's on providing comfort so it's you have

00:58:08.060 to be a different mindset to be able to work in there and very compassionate so that training

00:58:14.900 certainly is offered and there's so much interest in people that would like to do that type of care

00:58:23.360 Great. So are you networked with other facilities throughout the province already or in other provinces?

00:58:29.900 Or is this an independent sort of organization?

00:58:32.520 We're completely independent, but we have worked very closely and have been very, very fortunate to be under the guidance of the Edmonton Hospice as well as Okotoks.

00:58:43.680 They've been sharing just their startup journey and how the community is helping them provide the best service that they are providing in their communities.

00:58:52.820 And they've been absolutely amazing to work with and just going above and beyond to help us get started and make sure that we're on the right path.

00:59:01.760 So we're very fortunate.

00:59:03.900 And we also have connections with the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association.

00:59:09.120 They've provided us with lots of guidelines.

00:59:10.880 guidelines. The Alberta Hospice Palliative Care Association also provides a lot of educational

00:59:18.520 material and support material and the Palliative Institute of Canada and of Alberta are also

00:59:26.000 focusing on the compassionate community hospice. And our community as well as soon as we went live

00:59:33.660 just the amount of people that have reached out to us just their willingness to help and

00:59:37.380 and wanting to, they're very eager to see this break ground and to get started and to start

00:59:44.400 having patient care in our facility. It's been very overwhelming, the community support we've

00:59:49.680 already received. Well, that's good to hear. And that's why, you know, I was glad to have you guys

00:59:53.940 on because again, it's something so important and I'm as guilty as anybody. It's just a subject we

00:59:57.600 often just don't want to talk about until we have to. We'll always have to. So, you know, we've just

01:00:03.580 got to force that issue and bring it up and be proactive and get out there so that the community

01:00:08.600 is responding. Well, we've got to bring it to them, I guess, is the thing. And the people

01:00:12.620 realize that need. So what's the timeline for the hospice you're looking for to get rolling?

01:00:18.720 Well, our goal is two years. It's a huge undertaking to get a facility of that size

01:00:25.400 built. So yeah, we're fairly new and fairly motivated. We've got an amazingly strong

01:00:33.580 team and very passionate team about doing this. So, yeah, we're hoping that things just continue

01:00:41.540 to move forward here. Excellent. Well, I imagine you can only kind of do one project at a time

01:00:46.740 in a sense, but I mean, would there be plans if this facility, you know, you're a foundation,

01:00:51.860 you'll be established if this facility does well and is established that you would expand, perhaps

01:00:56.820 look to opening facilities in other, you know, population centers that need them?

01:01:00.920 I think one of the, once this one is established, the idea of having satellite areas out in other communities would certainly be an option, but getting this one established right now is the number one goal and go from there.

01:01:20.400 Great. Well, where can, you know, people find information about your organization

01:01:28.080 in taking part or potentially, you know, utilizing the services down the road?

01:01:31.920 Absolutely. So we have our website, guidedjourneys.ca. We are on social media platforms,

01:01:40.880 Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. So there's lots of ways to get a hold of us and get in touch with us

01:01:48.480 as to how people can connect and help us get going excellent and i see nico uh pulled up our

01:01:55.440 producer uh an event that's coming up i was going to ask you about that as well so you have a walk

01:01:59.760 to remember 2022 that's coming up on june 5th that's a fundraising initiative yes that's one

01:02:06.640 of our first fundraisers that we're going to do and it one of the purposes of doing it is to do

01:02:14.480 an honor walk so people can walk in honor of loved ones that have passed away and that's

01:02:21.280 pretty important to offer to the community that we certainly do hold their loved ones in our heart

01:02:27.600 and want to acknowledge them and remember them and yeah so that's one of the purposes of the walk

01:02:34.880 great and uh are there other events scheduled i imagine there'll be others coming but you might

01:02:38.720 not have them set up yes absolutely we have our first annual gala that's going to take place at

01:02:43.600 the Norlands on November the 26th of this year. So details will be announced after the walk on

01:02:50.320 our website and our social media. Excellent. Well, I really appreciate the work you guys

01:02:55.600 are doing. I really do. It's very important. As I said, whether we like it or not, we're all going

01:03:00.000 to need that help at some time or another. And it takes some strong people to do it.

01:03:05.040 So thank you very much for coming on the show and telling us about it today and the work you're

01:03:08.480 you're doing to get that facility going down there. And I hope everything goes grandly and

01:03:13.620 you get that up and running soon. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you for the

01:03:17.960 opportunity to talk to you. Great. No, no problem at all. Thanks guys. And perhaps we'll talk again

01:03:22.860 later. Thank you. So yes, that was Kinga Zintner and Celeste Mint of the Guided Journeys Foundation.

01:03:31.220 And as you see there, they're doing some very important work and it's work. As I said, it's an

01:03:36.480 issue. It's a subject I have a difficult time with. You know me, I'm the guy who babbles about

01:03:40.600 everything and goes on about everything and talks at length and to no end, but it's a subject I

01:03:46.480 dodge and it's an important one. You know, we want to deal with our loved ones. We want to set things

01:03:50.720 up for ourselves. And there's clearly, I was quite surprised how few facilities there are when

01:03:56.460 there's no hospice south of Ocotox. So check those guys out. It's again, Guided Journeys

01:04:03.400 Foundation and see if you can lend them a hand or if, you know, their services might be something

01:04:09.040 that you might, well, want to take advantage of it at some point down the road. So that was a good

01:04:16.020 conversation there. Let me talk. Let's get on, I guess, back to our political bent, though. And

01:04:20.960 again, if you want more information, you know, those guys up and see what you can do. Let's get

01:04:26.980 back into some politics here. We actually got to speak about one of our sponsors, and I'm going to

01:04:30.960 be talking to the head of that organization right away. And that's the Canadian Shooting Sports

01:04:36.180 Association. We have all this crazy stuff going on as I was ranting about with the firearms control,

01:04:42.160 the laws, the things that are coming in. Well, one of the many roles that the CSSA does, I mean,

01:04:46.880 they offer a lot of resources for firearm aficionados or people who want to get into

01:04:52.280 utilizing firearms, collecting them, any of the things you want to do with them.

01:04:56.060 You got to check them out. It's a, it's a, their name says it all. It's a shooting sports

01:05:00.260 Association, things, as you can see, black powder rifles or target shooting, trap shooting, hunting,

01:05:05.720 collecting, all of those things, all those things that the government, though, unfortunately, does

01:05:08.480 not want you to have the right or ability to do. CSSA, not only do they share all those videos for

01:05:13.980 safe utilization of firearms, that's a great one, you know, somebody training for the Olympics, I

01:05:17.600 mean, so many things that are harmless and fantastic sports, but you got to protect them.

01:05:22.480 And this association networks brings firearm owners together, and they lobby on your behalf.

01:05:28.300 So get on there, check them out, cssa-cila.org.

01:05:32.600 It's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

01:05:35.620 And, hey, if you want to hang on to your firearms, you've got to fight back

01:05:38.960 because they're looking to take them away from you.

01:05:41.100 So we'll talk to Tony a little while when he comes on.

01:05:43.060 He should be on fairly soon.

01:05:44.400 As I said, it's a pretty packed show.

01:05:46.540 So let's see. 0.59

01:05:47.420 This is interesting, again, seeing our entrenched, corrupted, nasty federal government.

01:05:51.440 Mark Carney, people might know the name.

01:05:52.980 I mean, he's been, he's a pure figure of the Laurentian elite establishment, really out of

01:05:58.000 central Canada. His name pops up all over. I think he was heading the Bank of Canada for some time.

01:06:02.400 Then he was over in England heading theirs or something, I think, for a bit there. And now,

01:06:06.700 I mean, a lot of people think he's a favorite for, he might come back and when Trudeau, whenever the

01:06:10.900 heck he steps down and retires, a lot of people think Mark Carney might be the one coming in to

01:06:14.900 try and fill his clown shoes. And Carney, unlike Justin, isn't stupid. I don't like what he is and 0.99

01:06:22.180 what he represents, but he's no fool. He's in fact quite dangerous. And he's the UN special 0.93

01:06:27.220 envoy right now. And he was appealing for cash donations to a liberal party think tank.

01:06:34.040 This is nice. This is what our elected officials are doing. This is Mark Carney's doing. He's been

01:06:38.980 appointed as a UN envoy. I don't even want to start about the UN. We don't have time for that

01:06:42.460 today. Maybe after I talk to Tony, but we'll see. There's so much to cover on these things.

01:06:47.340 But he's out there rubbing shoulders with the United Nations again, you know, with a

01:06:51.220 a vile organization. He's raising money for a liberal group. This isn't what these guys are

01:06:56.140 supposed to be sent over there for, though I'm not sure what they should be doing with the UN

01:06:58.740 in general anyways, but this is what they're up to. It's so flagrant and blatant, the insider

01:07:03.920 trading. And again, I'll use that word corruption of this federal state that we have right now.

01:07:11.320 And again, Carney is as entrenched with the liberals as he gets. Yeah, he was a former

01:07:15.640 party of the president. He was a campaign organizer for Trudeau, press aid. He's been

01:07:21.720 into everything. And now he's raising money through his UN position. So, I mean, you know,

01:07:27.380 how far is this going to go? Are the liberals going to start getting their ambassadors to

01:07:29.920 hold fundraising dinners for the liberal party overseas and the embassies? What other aspects

01:07:35.100 are the liberals going to use to keep strengthening and promoting themselves, you know, on our backs 0.96

01:07:41.920 for their ridiculous mandates and governance. 0.77

01:07:45.700 I think maybe I'll move on into that, 0.96

01:07:47.500 the ridiculous mandates and governance 0.54

01:07:49.080 and bring in our guest, Tony Bernardo. 0.83

01:07:51.620 He's been on the show before.

01:07:52.740 And as you heard me a couple of minutes ago

01:07:54.520 talking about the Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

01:07:57.380 Tony Bernardo is the head of that group.

01:07:59.400 And they've been lobbying.

01:08:00.800 Well, this is a time I'm certain Tony's been very busy.

01:08:03.100 So I really appreciate you coming on

01:08:04.440 and talk to us today, Tony.

01:08:05.860 Oh, no problem.

01:08:06.860 Glad to be here, Corey.

01:08:08.680 Yeah, so I guess, you know, we're not,

01:08:10.020 I wouldn't imagine too many people are terribly surprised to see a move like this out of our federal government, but it's really shown their true colors.

01:08:18.980 They're freezing handgun sales, bringing in a bunch of other legislation, and as I feel, it's probably just the beginning of a heck of a lot more.

01:08:27.340 Well, it is, actually, and there's a heck of a lot more in that bill already now than just simply freezing handguns.

01:08:33.760 There's a provision in the bill that will have a huge and dramatic effect on hunters and just casual shooters and farmers, and that is the bill that limits the magazines of long guns to five rounds.

01:08:48.760 This is not the semi-automatic black rifles.

01:08:52.960 This is all long guns, right down to .22 rimfires.

01:08:57.480 Yeah, I was saying that earlier in the show.

01:08:59.260 I've got a little .22 rimfire rifle in my house.

01:09:02.080 You know, it's a varmint gun.

01:09:03.060 it's not used in and it's not traditionally used for for robberies or mass shootings or anything

01:09:08.540 of the sort and now unless i uh modify those those little clips that go into that little thing

01:09:13.380 it'll suddenly become illegal well that's right and if you're using one that has magazines

01:09:19.560 detachable magazines you've got one of the easy ones to deal with because you can simply weld a

01:09:26.000 steel pin through the metal. But many of these guns, approximately 50% of all the long guns in

01:09:33.840 Canada have tube magazines. And the magazines on most of these is simply a metal tube. You put your

01:09:42.900 cartridges in the metal tube and then a spring follower goes and pushes them into the actual

01:09:49.460 chamber the legislation does not say modify the capacity of the gun to five rounds or less it says

01:09:57.340 modify the magazine and when you're dealing with legislation you're dealing with the minutia of

01:10:03.240 words when they say magazine they're talking about specifically the magazine not the magazine

01:10:09.380 follower not the spring not any other part of the magazine that you might add they're saying

01:10:15.600 the magazine. And these two magazine guns, it's impossible on about half of them.

01:10:23.580 Yeah. So essentially that will end up, I mean, assuming everything follows through with

01:10:27.820 illegalizing what was a perfectly legal and viable firearm that a person presumably then,

01:10:33.060 if they can't modify it, would have to turn it in. Well, you're talking about many millions of

01:10:38.460 long guns here and most of them are going to be cooey 22s that have been manufactured in ontario

01:10:46.020 since the beginning of time and are still manufactured in ontario under the savage name

01:10:51.960 many of these guns have tubular magazines now if you want to start right from the very basics

01:10:58.780 of creating the magazine well maybe it's a lot easier to do it that way but when you're dealing

01:11:06.100 with ones that hold 14 or 15 22 cartridges modifying those mags are really difficult and

01:11:13.580 then there's two magazines that feed from the buttstock and they're actually integral to the

01:11:19.540 stock of the gun to change that magazine you have to destroy the back of the end of the gun many of

01:11:26.380 these guns most of them are not made anymore now i was talking to uh one of our gun shop owners

01:11:33.240 earlier today and he and one of his gunsmiths took a winchester 94 that's a standard lever

01:11:40.660 action rifle that's used for deer in 30 30 caliber now this gun was made and designed in 1894

01:11:49.460 and has been continuously made to this day it took them four hours two people including a gunsmith

01:11:57.660 four hours to modify the magazine that's over 300 in shop time to take a deer rifle from six

01:12:06.240 shots to five shots this is insane this is this is the red line people are not going to cross

01:12:13.980 this line it is not possible to do this oh and then i mean another aspect of this whole thing

01:12:19.600 is getting more into the political but i mean this this legislation was obviously created and

01:12:23.680 drafted some time ago, but they waited for a foreign firearm tragedy before they decided to

01:12:30.080 impose it. I mean, that was no mistake on their part. And the politics of it, I find really 0.97

01:12:34.980 repugnant, to be honest. I mean, if this was a real pressing issue, if they really had to crack

01:12:39.920 down and bring in all these things, then they should have done this months ago. Why wait until

01:12:44.080 now? And it's political. It's not safety. Sure. And if it was really an issue, it would have been

01:12:48.860 done many, many years ago. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but every single year

01:12:53.720 of the Trudeau tenure, gun crime, gang crime has risen every year. When you look back

01:13:02.940 at 25 years ago, before the liberals started doing all the gun control nonsense,

01:13:09.760 gun crime was way lower than it is now. And it's just proof positive that these gun control

01:13:17.420 measures that they're doing are ineffectual. In fact, you can't find a single jurisdiction

01:13:23.280 anywhere in the world where gun control has worked.

01:13:27.820 Oh, and I mean, Justin Trudeau was asked quite directly at a conference just saying, you know,

01:13:32.580 that, look, it's not legally owned handguns that have been committing these crimes. We have the

01:13:37.920 stats. We have the numbers. Why are you cracking down? And of course, he wouldn't even answer. He

01:13:40.720 just sidetracked off into a totally separate issue altogether. They just don't care.

01:13:46.800 And, you know, when they give you the stats, and this includes police stats,

01:13:51.900 they're saying somewhere between 82% and 85% of all the crime guns in Canada

01:13:56.980 originate in the United States, as opposed to the rest,

01:14:00.960 which presumably originate in Canada.

01:14:04.420 But, in fact, they don't.

01:14:06.660 Many of these guns come in from Eastern Europe.

01:14:09.040 They come in from China.

01:14:10.100 And many of them come in from stolen police guns and stolen military guns. 0.99

01:14:16.720 They don't break any of that stuff down, probably because they don't know half of it.

01:14:21.360 But when they actually look at the guns that originate with a firearm purchased from a lawful firearms owner in Canada, the amount is infinitesimal.

01:14:30.920 It's so small.

01:14:31.600 In fact, I can remember back seven or eight years ago, ten years ago maybe, there was a lawful firearms owner that shot somebody in Toronto on the street, and it made national headlines because it was so rare.

01:14:47.700 It was the man bites dog scenario.

01:14:50.580 This is just so rare for this to happen.

01:14:54.320 People just don't use handguns like that in this country.

01:14:56.740 We use them for target shooting.

01:14:57.940 Yeah, and again, I mean, I think most law-abiding firearm owners would welcome more efforts to stop the smuggling, to hinder that, I mean, to get after the criminals.

01:15:08.880 I mean, we're more than overjoyed to see that.

01:15:11.600 We don't want to see people hurt, and we don't like seeing these illegal firearms giving everybody else a bad name.

01:15:16.940 Well, that's right, and the lawful firearms owners traditionally have been very supportive of these measures.

01:15:23.940 But honestly, I think that's coming to an end.

01:15:26.280 I think many lawful firearms owners in this country have simply had enough and they're just going to turn their back on the system and walk away.

01:15:35.680 This is very unfortunate because a society needs people to be lawful for the society to have order.

01:15:44.200 And we've just got a couple of million people out there that have just said, OK, that's that's it.

01:15:49.380 They've just they've crossed the red line and and that's it.

01:15:53.080 We're not playing anymore.

01:15:54.120 Yeah, they create criminals. I remember in the 90s with the registry and what was it? C68 back then, I think. But I remember hosting an organization back then that was called the Law Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association. These were people who were content firearm owners, law abiding individuals, but they chose not to register. They're saying, you're forcing us to be criminals, but we will not register. We will not do it.

01:16:22.120 I guess it was kind of an act of civil disobedience in a sense.

01:16:25.980 And when the laws get too unfair, people just won't respect them any longer.

01:16:30.580 Well, that's exactly it.

01:16:32.560 It's like going out to one of the major highways that has 100 or 120 kilometer an hour speed limit

01:16:39.460 and putting out a sign that says you have to do 60.

01:16:42.340 Are people going to do it?

01:16:43.580 No, they're not. 1.00

01:16:45.020 They're going to illegally speed because it's a stupid and dumb thing to do on a superhighway. 0.99

01:16:50.400 but you know that this is what happens when you just put too many layers of the onion on top of 0.98

01:16:57.760 it and and this is what they're doing they're they're going now into areas that they should

01:17:02.620 never ever tread into because the average farmer out there is not going to take his granddad's old

01:17:10.200 cooey 22 into a gunsmith and spend three or four hundred dollars on having a magazine

01:17:18.860 convert it he's not going to do it and then you know the the most popular 22 in the world

01:17:24.340 is the ruger 1022 and there are god knows how many of them in canada but the reason they're

01:17:33.380 called the 1022 is the magazine is a little block and in that little block it holds 10

01:17:39.380 rounds of 22. There is no way to take that magazine that I'm aware of and permanently

01:17:47.060 affix it to five rounds because the magazine itself is a block. It's a solid sealed block

01:17:55.960 that you can't disassemble very easily. This isn't going to happen, Corey. It's not going to happen.

01:18:03.380 Oh, and it's not making anybody any safer. That's the big frustration out of the whole thing. I mean,

01:18:07.380 hey, if this actually worked, I'd be singing a different tune. If you could point to something

01:18:12.100 and say, you know what, nobody will ever get shot again if we do this, or we'll reduce it

01:18:15.240 dramatically, fine, but there's no evidence to say any of that. Well, sure. And to regress for

01:18:21.780 a minute here into the handgun issue again, we're dealing with 1.1 million handguns, average value,

01:18:29.340 a thousand bucks. Let's talk about here a billion dollars worth of Canadian's property

01:18:36.920 that has just been made worthless. You can't sell it. You can't trade it. And when the person dies

01:18:44.780 and that money goes into the estate of the individual, the government comes and takes the

01:18:51.940 property. Remember, they don't take the money. It's not like the money is going to be used

01:18:58.040 to offset our enormous tax burdens or to pay off our deficits or our debts, I should say.

01:19:06.200 It's not like the money's used for that.

01:19:08.060 They're literally burning a billion dollars worth of Canadians' money for absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

01:19:16.920 This is criminal, absolutely criminal.

01:19:21.100 And everybody in our community is just shaking their head and going, this makes no sense.

01:19:25.920 it's not like the government's taking the property and paying us compensation. They're

01:19:30.840 just stealing it. And worse, they're stealing it from our widows. They're stealing it from our 1.00

01:19:35.700 families. This is incredible. And that's a term I've used over and over on this show when it

01:19:40.420 comes to things like this. If they take your property without your permission, I don't care

01:19:43.960 how much they pay me. If they paid me $100,000 for $200.22, if you didn't have my permission to

01:19:49.580 take it away, you were stealing it. It doesn't matter what you gave me later. That's not the

01:19:54.540 the case. That's right. Getting to the harder part though, what do we do about it? How can we

01:19:59.620 stop this move right now? We've got a government with an informal coalition that doesn't show any

01:20:05.900 signs of backing down on anything. How can we push back on this? Well, you can push back in

01:20:12.820 some ways. For example, things still have to go to committee in the Senate and the House.

01:20:19.660 And in those committees, we'll be able to testify to the mistakes they're making vis-a-vis magazines and perhaps make some changes there.

01:20:27.660 I do say perhaps because this government's never been particularly willing to listen to citizens.

01:20:35.320 Remember, of course, that the Trudeau government not only has a majority, but with the addition of the new NDP liberals that they have out there, they have a super majority.

01:20:45.600 And they could put through anything they want to put through.

01:20:48.760 no matter what we think, no matter what we say.

01:20:51.820 How do we stop it?

01:20:53.540 Well, I don't know.

01:20:55.240 I mean, realistically, the government is entitled to make laws.

01:20:59.180 That's what they're elected for.

01:21:01.480 Certainly, we can get a better government in next time, 0.98

01:21:04.620 and that requires that people actually get off their butt and support one. 0.64

01:21:09.180 Okay, I'm personally, I'm very, very pleased to see Mr. Pollyov running. 0.97

01:21:14.720 I'm an unabashed supporter of his,

01:21:16.760 and I believe that he's the first person that's got the fire in his belly

01:21:21.660 to actually change the course that the country is on going downhill.

01:21:26.280 I don't mean to make this a commercial for him because it's not, okay?

01:21:29.980 But if you don't change the way the government looks at things,

01:21:34.300 the way the government works, you're not going to change this.

01:21:38.440 The government has the legal authority to do this

01:21:41.420 and you might go ahead and file a lawsuit against them,

01:21:45.140 But good luck on that because they have unlimited amounts of money, your money, to use against you.

01:21:52.280 So you can write to your MP.

01:21:54.440 That's a great thing to do for everybody.

01:21:56.340 Write their MP.

01:21:57.060 You can go on parl.gc.ca, and I'll repeat that, parl.gc.ca, and on there is a list of every MP in Canada, including your MP.

01:22:11.900 Whoever that is, liberal, NDP, conservative, doesn't matter.

01:22:15.760 But get on there and write your MP.

01:22:18.160 Tell them that you're really, really pissed and you're not going to take it anymore.

01:22:22.560 And say you've got to do something to change this.

01:22:25.900 And that is a faint hope.

01:22:29.320 But it's the only one we've got to get rid of this thing.

01:22:32.440 That's it.

01:22:33.080 I mean, you know, giving up, you'll lose for sure.

01:22:35.200 So you might as well keep pushing even if it seems futile.

01:22:38.280 I mean, you know, things do change sometimes.

01:22:40.500 we sometimes win. And if we could change that government, that would be a big win. Of course,

01:22:45.200 that might be what it takes. But also the Senate, you know, it's surprising. They've been getting

01:22:49.460 more active lately and actually starting to do their job a bit with that Senate S7. I don't know

01:22:54.480 if you've been watching that, but that's the one that allows customs agents to rifle through your

01:22:57.780 phones and laptops. Well, a couple of liberal appointed senators actually got up and just

01:23:03.460 ripped that to shreds and said it's a breach of authority. So, you know, the Senate has some power

01:23:08.460 if they want to exercise it. And perhaps senators will speak up on this legislation as well. It has

01:23:13.580 to go through there. Sure. And what we hear in the Senate on a fairly regular basis is the senators

01:23:19.860 are a little bit fed up with Trudeau's antics all the time and this kind of nonsensical legislation

01:23:26.180 that does not make the problem better. It makes the problem worse. Have you ever heard the old

01:23:32.680 saying, in for a penny, in for a pound? Well, you know, if you're going to break the law and say,

01:23:38.100 I'm not going to have my magazine converted well then what difference would it make if you

01:23:44.080 transferred that very same firearm to somebody without going through their new registration

01:23:48.900 process well it doesn't make a difference you're in for a penny you're in for a pound

01:23:54.660 so people are going to go down that route and I'll tell you now this new registration process that

01:24:01.260 has been forgotten in this in this model which is only a couple weeks old now that's the most

01:24:06.680 ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Not only is it usable for absolutely nothing, but in doing so,

01:24:18.740 you have to obtain information that an unscrupulous person could use to illegally buy guns.

01:24:27.240 I mean, they've made the problem worse, not better. And again, people aren't going to go

01:24:33.000 through that system. They want to give a firearm to their son or daughter. They're not going to

01:24:37.680 go through that stupid registry system. They're just going to give it to them. And it's going to 1.00

01:24:42.040 be legal in the sense that that person's licensed to have it, but they're not going to use that dumb 0.99

01:24:47.800 system. It's not going to happen. No, it's unworkable and it won't do a darn thing for all 0.86

01:24:52.160 the existing firearms that are already out there. So, I mean, if you have a registry, if indeed one

01:24:56.220 could ever be useful, it has to have massive compliance to be at all useful and accuracy.

01:25:01.100 and in this case it wouldn't have either so yeah and in the last system where people were were

01:25:07.900 obligated to register and many many did at the end of years of this it was cost two billion dollars

01:25:15.900 and you couldn't use any of the evidence in court because it was so corrupted and so bad does

01:25:22.220 anybody think the computer today is going to do it any better than the computer did 15 years ago

01:25:28.460 I mean, this doesn't work.

01:25:31.120 You can't find a jurisdiction anywhere in the world where gun control has worked.

01:25:37.280 Even Britain, which is a little tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, they can't stop it.

01:25:45.100 Australia can't stop it.

01:25:47.940 And if you can't stop it on an island, what are you going to do with the world's longest undefended border of the largest firearm zoning population in the world?

01:25:55.820 yeah no it's it's it's just beyond the pale well we'll keep at it so i appreciate you coming on to

01:26:02.480 talk to us today tony where can people find more information about uh the cssa okay go to cssa hyphen

01:26:09.980 cila.org okay great and uh and outside of that they can just google the canadian shooting sports

01:26:17.160 association and all those resources are there well thanks for keeping up uh fighting the good

01:26:22.440 fight, Tony. And well, we never give up hope. We just got to keep pushing. Thanks for helping,

01:26:27.540 Corey. All right. Thanks. That was, as I said, Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Shooting Sports

01:26:32.340 Association. And as you guys know, on this show, you've heard me mention that organization a lot

01:26:36.180 of times. And it's one of those sponsors I like talking about because, hey, they're good for us.

01:26:40.860 They are standing up for us and we need to help them do it. You know, it takes participation

01:26:46.540 in order to have an impact and be effective.

01:26:52.340 So let's see what else we've got.

01:26:54.820 We're getting near the end of the show here now.

01:26:56.840 It was a pretty full one, three sets of guests going on today.

01:27:01.980 I'm going to start to line things up for tomorrow.

01:27:04.620 Lots to talk about overall, guys.

01:27:06.720 And somebody else, I think it was Pamela or somebody who was asking about a quote that

01:27:11.360 Tony had put out and where if it's written anywhere, if it's written anywhere, we'll

01:27:15.160 at that website at the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. They have their press releases there

01:27:19.060 and things like that. If you search it out, it could be there. So tomorrow, I'm going to have

01:27:23.760 Ed Amar on. He was actually the founding chairman of the UCP. And he's just been speaking out. I

01:27:29.940 mean, we're going into the leadership race. Their committee is forming things for the rules,

01:27:33.880 the basis and everything. And Mr. Amar, well, just wants to make sure it's a good, fair,

01:27:39.300 open process. So I mean, it's good to have some discussions from people who worked within these

01:27:42.500 parties and know about these things to try and get a good, trustworthy process going right now.

01:27:48.940 So we're going to have Emma on to talk about it. And then we're going to turn a bit towards the

01:27:52.360 Ontario election. This one's, at least for us out in the West, been sliding under the radar a lot.

01:27:55.880 I think partially because it looked like it was a shoe-in for Ford, though I imagine, you know,

01:28:00.800 nothing's ever for sure, but it's looking pretty solid. But all the same, it's important and it's

01:28:06.440 our biggest province, whether we like them or not. We have a lot of viewers and listeners out in

01:28:09.660 Ontario. So we've got our two main reporters out there, Matthew Horwood. He's our Ottawa man there

01:28:15.500 and Jonathan Bradley, and they're both going to come on the show and we'll just discuss what's

01:28:20.680 going into this election. What are perhaps some seats that are up for grabs? What are some of the

01:28:25.500 things, you know, in the campaign points and so on, and just some speculation. And tomorrow night,

01:28:31.720 those election results are going to come in on Thursday election, which is really unusual.

01:28:34.660 And that team of two Western Standard reporters will be back on Friday again, and then we'll

01:28:39.160 dissect and talk about, well, what happened? What are we looking at and what's in store for the

01:28:43.880 province of Ontario? So thank you all for tuning in today, guys. Always appreciate it. And I will

01:28:49.540 see you all again tomorrow at 1130 a.m. sharp.

01:29:09.160 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - June 02, 2022

Triggered： Municipal climate extremism will bankrupt taxpayers

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